Spartan Geographers forecast clear skies for new MSU Weather Club
October 1, 2025 - Diane Huhn
At Michigan State University, students are turning their fascination with tornadoes, hurricanes, and even sunny days into something bigger than small talk. Meet the MSU Weather Club, a brand-new registered student organization where geography majors — and anyone else curious about the sky above — can gather to swap forecasts, play weather-themed games, and learn from professionals in the field.
The idea for the club started in class. “We kept talking about how fun it would be to have a space just for weather enthusiasts,” said Harry Fuess, the club’s president and a senior majoring in environmental geography and atmospheric sciences. “We didn’t have anything like it here, so we wrote up a constitution and made it happen.”
Vice president Kiera Haver remembers watching The Weather Channel as a kid — often instead of cartoons — while junior Isabelle Ernest, the club’s secretary, recalls being glued to the TV meteorologist during thunderstorm warnings. For Feuss, growing up on the Great Plains of Nebraska meant seeing storms sweep in across wide-open skies. All three carried that early spark into their studies, and now they’re helping build a community around it.
So, what does a weather club actually do? For starters, they’re launching a fantasy-football-style competition — only instead of touchdowns, members draft U.S. cities and track precipitation totals to see whose picks come out on top. There are also plans to host guest speakers, like local and, hopefully, national TV meteorologists and weather researchers, and to take part in the WX Challenge, a national collegiate weather forecasting contest run by the University of Oklahoma.
The vibe is intentionally low-pressure. “You don’t need to know calculus or be an atmospheric science major to join,” Haver explained. “It’s about being around people who think weather is cool.”
Looking ahead, the group hopes to grow, welcoming not just atmospheric science majors but anyone who gets excited by snowstorms, heat waves, or a perfectly sunny afternoon. Long-term goals include becoming an official chapter of the American Meteorological Society, which would provide access to national conferences, job boards, networking opportunities, and other valuable resources. This would require a fee of ten dollars per member, so the e-board is still determining if that goal is feasible at present.
In the meantime, the MSU Weather Club is keeping things fun and flexible. Meetings take place every other Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in Berkey Hall, Room 100, and are open to all MSU students. Updates are posted on Instagram (@msuweatherclub) and through their Discord server, where members can even vote on lighthearted events like movie nights. For additional details, visit the club’s Involve@State webpage.
Faculty advisor Dr. Ryan Shadbolt is helping guide the group, but Fuess, Haver, and Ernest emphasize that it’s the members who will make the club what it becomes. “We want to see this grow,” Ernest said. “It’s about building something that gets people curious and excited about the weather.”
Whether you’re chasing storms, studying radar maps, or just wondering if you’ll need an umbrella tomorrow, the Weather Club has a spot for you. After all, talking about the weather might be the most universal conversation starter — and now, at MSU, it’s also a reason to come together.